A developer is someone who tried to make there "The Game", failed, but didn't quit on game development.

5 hours ago, grumpyOldDude said:

only need to be mentored and well directed by an experienced guru in the field

I agree with you except for this part.

The pain of failing to make your great game idea is easier to deal with than the pain of making it with the help of a experienced developer, only to have the players you made it for rip it to pieces.

The tantrums these developers throw is much worse than just a person failing and blaming everyone else for it. Even worse is if they succeeding a few times and then fail, the fall from that high can kill all passion for game development.

Having first failed and then looking for a mentor works best.

On 1/4/2018 at 9:21 AM, wurstbrot said:

I think a big factor is that video games aren't physical things, but just data.

This too. A skyscraper intimidates you because it's physically giant. We all know that take it upwards of millions of dollars to build and we can see the back-breaking labor that it takes to build one.

Games are digital so you can't see all the brainstorming, planning, coding, modeling, texturing, testing, etc. that goes into building one. Even if you do see a YouTube video show some behind-the-scenes footage of game development, it looks really fun and easy.

I think it's perfectly fine to have big ideas and want to manifest them, as long as you don't expect others to do the work for you for free. I have huge respect for those who take full accountability and attempt something ambitious themselves even it it might be out of their scope. 

On 04/01/2018 at 8:31 AM, lawnjelly said:

'For my first game, I want to make one like this, that took 50 programmers, artists, and designers 3 years to make, but mine will be better, obviously and like, twice as big. I don't know any programming languages or how to make art. I'm thinking of using Unity, and I expect to finish it in 2 weeks. How should I begin?'.

Yeah, I get where you're going with this.  I fall under this definition.  I made my first game when I was 12, it was a board game, when I boil it down it was just a rolling dice game but I envisioned it blow up like monopoly, ha!  And I'm now 39 and repeating the same thing with a  computer game.  I suppose for me it's the passion, it blinds me.  The lesson I took from my childhood is that this time around I'll choose when to bow out, and that'll be when nobody cares after I've given it my all.  At that time that'll be it for my game dev career, after that I'll be attempting my final project in the humanitarian realm.

7 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

A developer is someone who tried to make there "The Game", failed, but didn't quit on game development.

So how about someone who only takes a stab at the one greatest game of them all?

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

Amen!  oh wait, I'm not a genius , stupid tickle me test.

Yup, guilty. In many fields too. I too thought I was gonna be the next Jimi Hendrix (Eddie van Halen, in my case) and now my guitar sits across from me, mocking me. I also thought I was going to be the next Rodney Mullen (skateboarding) until I was introduced to the pavement, the front bumper of a Jaguar and a collapsed lung from the impact. Then I thought I was gonna be the next Rockstar and do this awesome open world game... Yeah. I thought that for while. And then I set out to put my money where my mouth is. 

And ended up just playing GTA, which seemed a whole lot easier.

Now I have a new idea, but I scaled it back a bunch. Maybe a bit too much, as the target audience is a grand total of me. But a classic point & clicker seems a whole lot more manageable than GTA. I can handle a couple of true/false statements and if worst comes to worst I can take the whole setup for the game and turn it into the next greatest bestseller. I know how to put Fifty Shades of Words in a row and that's apparantly all it takes nowadays.

Anyway, today I am well aware of the skills I am missing for this undertaking, but at least I'm having fun trying to tackle this thing. Maybe ask me this question next week, when I'll be drawing stick figures with crayons and calling it a day.

On 1/4/2018 at 8:31 AM, lawnjelly said:

A psychology question really .. what is it about game development in particular that makes the typical first posts of a beginner something like:

Why do we do this?

As others mentioned, it isn't just games, and it isn't just beginners.  It can be that you'll lose an unrealistic amount of weight as your new years resolution, or you'll finish an assignment by some deadline, or you're Apple releasing a watch a week after the official release date, or Duke Nukem Forever released about 15 years late. 

The problem has been around for all of humanity. A bit of web searching shows even in the ancient world, the ancient Roman, Greek, and Babylonian cultures made assorted promises and resolutions each new year, including documented promises to return objects, pay debts, and follow better care.  People have been setting (and failing to meet) overambitious unrealistic goals for all of recorded history.  
 

It doesn't matter even if we have experience.  We KNOW we aren't going to drop that much weight, but we think that THIS TIME we might be able to. We KNOW that every year we wait to file taxes but we commit to THIS TIME doing it earlier.  We KNOW that similar assignments have required more time, but we think that THIS TIME we can make it by an earlier deadline.   We KNOW a game like the one we see has a 15-minute long scrolling list of names in the credits, but we think we can do it.

As typical, Wikipedia's got a writeup listing a bunch of proposed reasons with references. It looks like something psychologists have been writing about since the 1960s.  Given the history of new year's promises, I can imagine Hammurabi reading the stone tablet newspaper at the new year describing how he can help keep his goals of losing weight and keeping it off. 

It's caused by the strong presence of magical thinking in the education of children.

• Mommy, why do I get presents at christmas? Because of magic Santa.
• Mommy, how does santa make all the presents? It's his magical elves.
• Mommy, how can he visit everyone in a night? Because magic reindeers.
• Mommy, why do we celebrate christmas? Because jesus was born from the virgin mary.
• Mommy, mary isn't a virgin if she gave birth.? You are wrong... because magic.

Now adult: I'm going to make a game that took 1000 people to make all by myself, because magic.

Personally I think it might be more because it's considered bad or bad parenting to tell your kid they can't do something. The whole participation-trophy principle?

And I don't think parents don't see it either. Your kid gets mangled in a football-game (I'm Dutch and I only know American culture from movies, so, football, yes?) because he can't really even walk down a hall without bouncing off both walls and mom will still tell him he's special.

I know, now that I have two stepkids, it's horribly hard to tell a kid they suck at something, but sometimes it needs to be done, if only to protect them from Simon Cowell. It's not a new thing either, they used to tell me I could do [whatever I was failing at at that time] and all that got me was a feeling of inadequacy. Thank god I got wise. [showoffmoment]I have an archery trophy sitting behind me right now. Not for winning, but for hitting the most bullseyes (it's possible to hit the most bullseyes and not win on points). I never expected to win anything at that little competition because I'm a realistic person, but I was happy with the trophy even though I knew that the only reason I got it was because one other shooter didn't show that day.[/showoffmoment]

I forget where I was going with this. Or what part of inadequacy I was trying to showoff up there... Anyway, tell your kid they suck at things sometimes. Either  they don't suck and grow up being the best at it just to show you you were wrong, or they do suck and realise it so they can go do something they're good at.

I was gonna quote that one shooter that didn't show up, but I started thinking about my own game and it occurred to me: Who the fuck cares as long as you have fun doing what you're doing. So I'm just gonna quote myself with something I just made up: Have fun, be reaslistic, don't take anything too seriously.

worked for Chris Roberts....

12 hours ago, gabereiser said:

worked for Chris Roberts....

what was that like?  Is that game over-hyped or what?

This thread reminds me of the movie Whiplash, anybody see it?